A Legacy of Learning: Your Stake in Standards and New Kinds of Public Schools

By James Harvey, David T. Kearns, George W. Bush

What's wrong with America's schools? Why can't we fix them? How did we wind up with dropout rates of 25 percent and graduates who can barely read and write? Why does the United States spend twice as much on education as the international average and wind up near the bottom of the barrel in global comparisons of student achievement? Why do we lag behind nations such as South Korea, Hungary, and Singapore? And how should we go about improving the situation? Answers to these questions lie at the heart of this volume. David T. Kearns and James Harvey contend we are fine-tuning failure. We have yet to break with the past in order to face a different and challenging future. Despite worshiping at the altar of ""local control"" we have managed to create cookie-cutter schools across the country. We have been sidestepping the transparent need for common expectations about what students should know and be able to do. Standards, the authors say, are not clear enough or high enough. Above all, we have met the enemy and it is us: all of us support ""change"" as long as someone else is changing. This book is a fascinating and provocative analysis of where we went wrong and what we need to do to get American education back on track. It defines the kind of education our kids deserve. It calls for a new definition of ""public education"" in which choice is taken for granted. And it outlines an action agenda to help parents and citizens make first-class schools truly their own. In the future, the authors argue, we should think of a public school as any other non-profit entity--capable of operating in the public interest free of the red tape now strangling public education. It should be paid for by the public and accountable to the public, with its charter or contract routinely revoked when it stops serving public purposes or fails to meet its performance goals.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815748949
• ISBN13: 9780815748946
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

If you've got school age children, read this book.

I'm the mother of 2 young children about to enter school age years and I am concerned about what's happening in our public schools today. Like more and more parents, I've begun saving money to pay for the inevitable, private schooling. So many of us today have become resigned about the difference we can make if we became committed to altering the public school system. After reading this book, I have a better understanding of the breakdown that's occuring right in my own neighborhood. The authors so clearly outlined what's happening, what's not, and what we can do about it. I'm hopeful again that there is something that can be done. The book is poignant yet heartfelt. If you or someone you know has children, you should read this book.

What a Pleasure!

Most books about American education are either unreadable or fail to tell the truth. What a pleasure to read one that is clear, well-written, and above all, truthful. The authors pull no punches, insisting from the outset that "American urban education is a national disgrace." From there, the book is cogently argued, challenging the many shibboleths that distort the school reform debate and refusing to be boxed in by the conventional reform wisdom. See, for example the discussion on "hardwiring innovation" in Chapter 11. Best of all, the analysis carries the debate about public education in America to the next level, i.e., what we can actually change now to starting making things better. Overall, "Legacy" is both perceptive and engagingly written. This book, if widely enough read and heeded, can do what most books on education reform only dream about--make a difference.